In some geographic areas, parking may be difficult for a driver to find. For example, heavily urbanized areas, like downtown areas in large metropolitan cities, may have street parking distributed throughout the area, but the number of overall spaces may be small compared to the number of drivers interested in parking in those spaces. In many cases, a driver may spend a significant amount of time traversing the streets before finding an available parking space. Sometimes, this space may end up being a significant distance from the driver's intended destination, which may be particularly frustrating to the driver if there were other available spaces closer to their destination that the driver was not aware of when trying to park.
Some methods have been developed to assist in identifying parking capacity and availability using available transactional data for merchants in the surrounding area, such as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/858,297, filed on Sep. 18, 2015, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/386,552, filed on Dec. 21, 2016, which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety. However, in some cases individuals may park in an area without transacting directly in that area, or transaction frequencies may be inconsistent with the amount of time spent parked in the nearby spaces. In such instances, the driver may be provided with an idea of the availability of parking in an area, but may not be confident that any particular parking space is open at that moment. However, providing more reliable parking information and enforcement of time restrictions present technical challenges regarding the detection of available parking locations as well as auditing and distribution of parking availability information.
Thus, there is a need for a technical solution for identifying parking spaces that are available for a driver based on direct identification of the availability of that parking space. In addition, there is a need for the technical solution to provide secured data regarding occupancy of parking spaces, which may be beneficial for auditing and assistance to drivers and law enforcement regarding parking disputes.